Unusually for a manga series, Suzune Magica was initially released as a single volume, with all other chapters being serialized in Manga Time Kirara Forward. Serialization started with chapter 5 on November 22, 2013 and finished a year later on November 22, 2014. Three collected volumes have been released in total for the installment.

Contents

Blurb

Volume 1

Suzune Amano lives an extraordinarily normal life as a middle school student by day and... magical girl assassin by night?! When a group of four magical girls begins investigating the serial murders rampant in their city, they soon find themselves the next targets of Suzune! But what is the truth behind Suzune's motivations to hunt both witches and magical girls alike?

Volume 2

Suzune Amano is a hard-working middle school student, but her ever-smiling face conceals a dark secret — that she's a magical girl assassin. As the magical girls of the town are picked off one after another, the remaining few fall into despair. In their darkest hour, what path must these girls take...?

Volume 3

Suzune Amano is a hard-working middle school student, but her ever-smiling face conceals a dark secret — that she is a magical girl assassin. With the entrance of a new magical girl who stands in opposition to her, Suzune finds herself struggling for the first time. What final conclusion will Suzune's actions wreak...?

A colour page featuring Tsubaki and Suzune is added at the beginning of the book.

Both colour pages in chapter 10 are turned black and white.

A two-page afterword by GAN is added after the end of chapter 10.

Suzune Magica volume 3

A colour page featuring Matsuri and Kagari is added at the beginning of the book.

Both colour pages in chapter 13 are turned black and white.

The chapter title for chapter 14 is added to page 69; this detail was missed in the serialized version of the chapter.

The word "Fin." is added to the very last panel of the last chapter.

An extra page featuring Suzune is added to the end of the book.

Publishers

Language

Publisher

Country

Release date

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Japanese

Houbunsha

Japan

November 12, 2013, June 25, 2014, December 12, 2014

English

Yen Press

United States

September 22, 2015, December 15, 2015, May 24, 2016

Chinese

Tong-Li Publishing Co., Ltd

Taiwan, Hong Kong

2015

N/A

N/A

Thai

Siam Inter Comics

Thailand

2015

N/A

N/A

Observations

"Hating someone so much you wanted to kill them" appears quite a bit in Suzune Magica.

Haruka wished for Kanata to be erased out of her jealousy.

Arisa hated Suzune for killing Chisato, and ended up challenging her to a duel to the death.

The whole story happened because Kagari hated Suzune for killing Tsubaki and crafted a gambit to make her life miserable, with Suzune's death to be the "climax".

Suzune Magica is similar to the original request that became Madoka Magica. The request asked for a bloody story where the girls dropped off one by one; Suzune Magica contains quite a bit of blood, and has all but one of the main characters die one by one over the course of the story.

The Hoozuki quartet all refer to each other by first name without any honorifics, which shows they all have a close bond with each other. Kyubey and Kagari also refer to the group as "仲間" nakama, which means a close circle of friends.

Matsuri and Kagari are very opposite to each other. They have opposing colour schemes (green and purple, which are also contrasting colours) and very opposing personalities (Matsuri is kind, forgiving, and genial; Kagari is sadistic, vengeful, and quick to anger). Matsuri used to be blind, whereas Kagari always had sight; but whereas Matsuri gained sight with her wish, Kagari became "blinded" by her desire for revenge on Suzune. Matsuri also likes Suzune whereas Kagari hates her.

Suzune Magica is the first major spin-off where Kyubey is not a main antagonist or agitator of the story, and is in fact a rather minor character who only serves to exposit at certain points of the story. While Kyubey is still responsible for the magical girl system, Suzune Magica is more driven by Suzune's and Kagari's actions made out of their own decisions, rather than being directly spurred on by Kyubey like other Puella Magi antagonists.

The art style for Suzune Magica starts off as stiff and not very fluid or dynamic in volume 1. However, by volume 3, the art has evolved to be much more fluid, and the movement of the characters is much more dynamic. One reason behind the art evolution might be that volumes 2 and 3, which have the better art, underwent serialization beforehand, whereas volume 1 did not.

A lot of Suzune Magica's conflict appears to take place in alleyways, in comparison with Madoka Magica where the conflicts take place in a variety of places. Notably, the majority of Suzune Magica volume 3 takes place in an alleyway.

All the magical girls, except for Tsubaki, wear some kind of collar on their necks.

Suzune Magica has two "decoy protagonists":

At first Suzune is set up as the main villain, but Kagari appears and turns out to be the main villain instead.

Arisa is set up as the main hero, but dies, with Matsuri turning out to be the main protagonist in her place, though this is due to the fact that Arisa was intended to be the main protagonist originally.

Speculation

The theories below have been proven wrong.They are only kept here for the sake of completeness.

It is speculated that Suzune Magica had such an odd release life due to poor sales. Volume 1 was released alone with no prior serialization, unlike traditional manga; and when volume 1 didn't sell very well, serialization in Forward was started up. Volume 2 didn't do very well either, resulting in the final third (and thus volume 3) being rather rushed and full of info-dumping, and thus hastily concluded. Note that this speculation is a guess based on Suzune's odd release life and overall volume sales alone. More info on this speculation can be read on the Walpurgischan thread (you will need to scroll down a bit).

Debunked. The serialization jump was intentional on GAN's part and had nothing to do with sales. Suzune was originally supposed to be two volumes, but urging for more plot twists led to GAN creating Kagari and the memory plot, leading to the creation of a third volume. Source

It seems that there are two cities featured in Suzune: Yunagi City and Hoozuki City, both of which are neighbouring cities, like Mitakihara and Kazamino in Madoka Magica. Suzune, Tsubaki, and the Hinata twins apparently lived in Hoozuki, with Suzune transferring to Yunagi later on, and Kagari following her. Why Matsuri currently resides in Yunagi, though, is unknown. Perhaps she lives somewhere near the border, or is a transfer student like Suzune.

Debunked. There is only one city, Hoozuki City. Yunagi is the name of the newspaper store that Suzune works at. The name of Hoozuki City is never mentioned in-story until a news report in volume 3.

Trivia

Matsuri, Kagari, and Tsubaki are all named after flowers.

Matsuri is named after the jasmine (茉莉花,marika).

Kagari is named after the cyclamen (篝火花,kagaribibana).

Tsubaki is named after the camellia (椿,tsubaki).

All the characters' first names are spelt with katakana in the story, with kanji only appearing in the profiles at the end of the collected volumes. The only exceptions are Tsubaki, whose kanji name appears in a speech bubble in volume 3, and Kagari, whose kanji name was revealed in a tweet by GAN.

Chapter 14 is the only chapter without a title, magazine version only; the collected volume fixes this error.

Volume 1 has only four chapters, whereas volumes 2 and 3 have six chapters each.

Like some of the other Puella Magi spin-offs, Suzune Magica received mixed to negative reception. Some of this negative response is due to the story's use of too many of the series' basic cliches, too little original or distinguishing elements compared to other Puella Magi installments, general predictability of the story's direction, as well as the poor pacing and rather rushed ending.

According to results from a couple of unofficial polls (see the external links section below), Arisa and Matsuri are generally the most-liked characters of the cast, with Suzune and Kagari being generally the least-liked.